1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer-aided design and, more particularly, to a method for reducing the complexity of computer-aided design models while maintaining the kinematic relationships of all the components.
2. Description of the Related Art
The term computer-aided design (CAD) generally refers to a broad variety of computer-based tools used by architects, engineers, and other construction and design professionals. CAD applications may be used to construct computer models representing virtually any real-world construct. For example, CAD applications are frequently used to create two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) models of mechanical devices. A popular CAD application that is used to construct 3D models of mechanical devices is the Autodesk® Inventor software application program.
3D models developed for mechanical designs can be extremely large and very complex, consisting of tens of thousands of individual elements, assemblies and constraints. Despite the speed and memory capacity of modern computers, large models can significantly degrade computer performance and response times. Moreover, their sheer complexity makes it difficult to navigate through the model space and to work with elements of interest.
A variety of techniques exist to reduce complexity and improve performance. The Autodesk® Inventor software application program, for example, allows users to make components invisible, making other parts of the model easier to visualize and navigate. This technique, however, does not improve computer performance and response times very much, because the components that are made invisible are still loaded into memory. Users may, on the other hand, elect to completely skip the loading of a component, but doing this destroys the kinematic integrity of the model.